Directly east of New York City lay a long, narrow island known as Long Island. On Long Island stood a place called Laurel Manor, where grand parties were held every summer. On clear days, the sweeping terrace offered a beautiful view of Peconic Bay. Its four orderly gardens and eight outbuildings all followed the style of an English country estate. To give the house a sense of age, the designer had even made the roof deliberately uneven and pitted.
The mistress of the house, Mrs. Binns, was intelligent and beautiful, graceful yet full of energy. She always shone in social settings. She belonged to the All-American Women's Club, while her husband Charles was a partner at J.P. Morgan & Co. and sat on the boards of sixteen companies. The friends who regularly visited Laurel Manor were all refined, sophisticated members of high society. Even for a casual meal at home, they wore black tie.
They opposed Prohibition. Mrs. Binns could not understand why some women supported "dry" Conservative Senate candidates merely to support Prohibition, while disregarding other matters closely tied to the national interest. She considered Herbert Hoover the greatest humanitarian of the age. To support his campaign, she had once gathered a group of "wives of banking magnates" to raise campaign funds.
Although New York repealed Prohibition in 1923, this was mainly because the newly inaugurated governor that year signed a new prohibition bill, the Mullan-Gage Act. He believed that Prohibition required families and churches rather than laws, and so repealed the original Prohibition law.
The original Prohibition law was gone, while the new one was never effectively enforced. If the police truly arrested offenders by those standards, New York would have needed to convene eighteen thousand juries every day.
The original Prohibition law required New York police to